


A Whisper in Your Ear, A Piece of Your Cake

by inthisdive



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-29 23:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12095673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthisdive/pseuds/inthisdive
Summary: Lilly Kane doesn’t quite die, exactly, in the textbook way. (Vampfest 09!) (first published on LJ in 2009)





	A Whisper in Your Ear, A Piece of Your Cake

The head wound heals after almost a day, when her skin is used to itself again; Lilly Kane is beautiful in this night, the most important night – the night it begins. Her skin looks like the porcelain doll her father gave her when she was six years old. All things considered, Lilly thinks, this is not the most awful thing ever.

She leaves the hospital morgue in a billowing gown tinged red on the collar and in bare feet. She can hear the grass beneath her toes when she makes it outside - she can hear it _grow_. Lilly feels important, full-but-empty; she pauses and looks up at the moment, caught in the moon.

It looks so pretty tonight.

*

It's like a toy, Neptune: it suddenly seems to have everything Lilly could ever want, could ever dream. So many people, their lives spinning out in front of them like thread, winding away from their hands and their control. It's those threads that she thinks she can hear on the wind; she spreads her arms and twirls in a circle. She giggles; a carefree, girlish laugh that echoes off apartment buildings and storefronts and comes right back to her. 

She wonders if anyone heard her. If they _know_. Where they are, her people. Oh, her people... her dear, lovely, lively people. 

The moon is half-obscured by cloud when she finds Weevil in his grandmother's backyard, sitting with his shirt off and his head in his hands. His shoulders are shaking, and Lilly smiles this smile that is pure Lilly Kane but tinged with something that reminds her that she had a heart. She always _did_ have a soft spot for the boy. 

"Eli..." she says, wrapping her voice into the night they way she caught him around her little finger - half-pleading-wanting laced with allure. He looks up, his eyes wide and disbelieving. Lilly counts his rapid blinks (eight) and, with sheer delight and a swing of her hips, she says it again. 

"Eli..."

Weevil gets up. Walks. He doesn't smile, but that's okay, Lilly doesn't expect a smile. Doesn't want a smile. Things are different now, she knows this somehow without needing to _know_ at all; her arms slide around his neck, her leg pressed into the seam of his own, nudging them apart. When he parts his lips, looks ready to speak, Lilly puts a finger over his lips.

She kisses her cheek, his jaw, his chin, all teeth and tongue and tease and warns "Shhh, I'm a secret," and he's a _good boy_ and doesn't say a word, just lowers his head and lets Lilly tilt it back with two fingers. 

Lets her suck on his pulse point and, when Weevil's eyes flutter shut, she feels it happen: it's like an out-of-body experience as she watches herself shift, rise up on her toes, lean forward... and then it's a rush, an explosion of _tastelifewarmwanthotmore_ , as she coaxes him into her, takes him deep and thick and so it's heady that her eyes roll back into her head for the second time that night and when she's finally done, when she's him and he's hers, she collapses onto the yard and stares at the stars.

Suddenly, she understands every last thing about them.

*

It's harder in the daytime, just harder to _be_ , okay, like Lilly has one giant headache that not even the most outrageous pair of oversized shades is going to take care of. She's learned to move slower, speak quieter; she's learned that all that dazzles is her smile. And she's learned to be quiet. 

For the first time ever. 

Neptune High is like a...like a den of the deepest, most sensory of vices. Everyone's a little naughty, everyone's a teensy bit filthy, and the home of Neptune's teenagers is like an ode to hedonism and hormones. It's a little too much for Lilly; she gets too excited, too overwhelmed now that she knows everyone's secrets; she can read them all. 

She doesn't mean to come back, but sometimes something tugs, this tiny little voice that reminds her of a few things here and there. Fourth period. Stolen champagne. 09ers. 

Logan, Duncan. 

She's in the shade of the parking lot, and it's morning, and if she stands still, she knows, anyone that notices her will only see a ghost, only _I thought I saw Lilly Kane_ and _I can't believe she's gone_ , and that will be all. She can stand there, and she can wait to see the names she remembers like they mean something. This interests Lilly, because she can remembers having connections but hardly what that ever meant.

And there they are, Logan tall and coiled and eyes that are always smaller than she remembers. Duncan, solid and closed-off and _clenched_ , like he doesn't remember how to smile. They are walking together and talking about something Lilly could overhear but chooses not to - that would ruin the mystery of the moment, make them more real, make herself more real, and today she likes being part of that foggy, undefined shadow side of the world.

Lilly is content to watch. She watches when Logan flashes a smile that's dangerous and wild - she watches when Duncan shakes his head and places a hand on Logan's arm that he promptly shrugs off; she watches as they walk in synchronized steps with each other and speak of something that she knows without knowing means nothing at all. She looks at them and hears the ocean and sees a comfortably modern living room; she hears fights and teasing and laughter, all mingled mezzos and baritones, and she remembers it then, she remembers how she was so tangled up in them, in her life. 

Lilly's shadows turn on her and pass over her face, and she walks away.

*

For weeks that stretch into months, she doesn't - can't bring herself to - even _think_ of Veronica; the _everything_ too much, too cloying, too inherently human to be denied, and now Lilly prides herself on being _more than_ human. 

They run into each other literally and purely by mistake; Veronica has someone framed in her camera and staring, and Lilly has only the stars in her eyes as she turns a corner. Their hands brush, their eyes meet.

_Veronica_.

“Lilly?” it’s a question, and it’s that unsure voice of Veronica’s that Lilly knows better than anyone, because she knew – knows – her better than anyone. She knows she could step into her line of sight and take her, see her again, and it aches and she almost does it, she almost...

But Veronica shakes her head, wipes her eyes like she’s annoyed that she can even, like, feel pain at all, and refocuses her camera. Only Lilly would ever notice that her hands are shaking.

Only Lilly would leave her be. 

 

*

Lilly is bigger than she used to be, bigger than her body, like the song, except she’s still so tiny and flawless that it’s like she’s outside of the realm of the possibility. She feels this almost one hundred percent of the time and it’s kind of wild, this new experience, this new life, where there are no scars on her skull and a whole new philosophy about tan lines. 

The _almost_ of almost one hundred percent Lilly has never felt as strongly as this night. Because on this night, in this new darkness that is only really new-old, same as all the others on the surface, she has seen Aaron Echolls. 

He comes to her, and it’s like he knew exactly where to find her, gleaming and slick and taking her hands like he’s _allowed_ to just touch her, and he says her name in a murmur. 

“How is my protégé,” he says more than asks, the words coiled around his tongue. Lilly thinks it might be a trick question and she smiles all sweetly, and she nods.

“Still dancing,” she says, and Lilly, who doesn’t turn from anything, won’t meet his eyes. She doesn’t _like_ Aaron Echolls. Sketchy, and no matter how hot fucking him in secret, in the scandalous private and taboo had been, he had taken her privacy away and suddenly he hadn’t been hot at all. 

“Dance with me again,” he says, and extends a hand to her, and it looks gnarled in the darkness.

“No,” Lilly says, because he may have given her the chance to walk the world again, but Lilly hasn’t forgotten he was the reason she’d needed that chance in the first place. That first the blood had been spilled useless and poolside before it had trickled down his throat, before she had choked on him (again), bitter and rich in her dying mouth.

“No,” she says it again, and she is strong, and people dance on the palm of her hand now, and her hands place themselves squarely on his chest and _push_. Aaron hits the ground and Lilly straddles him with déjà vu and a rush of blood to the head, fingernails lightly raking over his face. 

He smiles, still. “This is still dancing.”

“Lilly Kane,” she tells him smoothly, settling her hands around his neck, “Doesn’t give free pity dances to anyone.” She lifts one hand, bends her head low. Her hair falls around her face and whispers over her cheek as her lips settle over his pulse.

The teeth – the rush – she whispers “You were a really bad fuck” – and then he is everything and everywhere and Lilly remembers terror and she remembers dying and she tastes the second in happened inside of him and she cries tears just like dust and takes him until he is dry and nothing and she is gasping and empty-but-full. 

He disappears - poofs - is truly gone, and Lilly has exacted her own revenge.

*

Lilly holds the stars in her hands; Lilly wanders on the breeze.

*


End file.
